Category: Tea Farm Blogs

Toward an economic revival Visiting the Mr. Osugi, head of the tourism bureau in the Town of Yamada, we discovered that he is in the process of launching a new industry for this small town that was nearly wiped out. Discovering that a certain type of wine allows him to make a pretty delicious soy […]

Today’s event | Tour of the district of Taro, Miyako City, Iwate Pref | Other photos | Read in Japanese Today’s event: Serving tea with the Sanriku Saori Project The Sanriku Saori Project (Facebook page) led by Susumu Omori and Takashi Higashiyama, seeks to place looms at temporary housing facilities and community centers throughout the […]

Caravan Day 2: Two events & a visit to the Sanriku Coastline We began the day with a second visit to the Yamachi Rakunou Dairy Farm to meet up with Yoshizuka-san, who would take us to the first event location. Before leaving the Dairy Farm, we walked out to the mountain meadow where the cows […]

Below is a tea carrying doll designed in Edo period (19 century）
When you put a cup filled with tea on the the saucer,the doll carries tea to the guest.
When the guest accepts the tea cup ,the doll stops.
When the guest puts the vacant tea cup on the saucer,the doll comes back to you.

Tea farmers in Japan, specifically Shizuoka, Kanagawa, Saitama, and the prefectures directly surrounding Fukushima where the nuclear power plant is located, have had their tea shipments stopped due to radiation contamination.

Founder Matsumoto Yasuharu will be speaking about the establishment and debut of this new non-profit organization amid the global focus on radiation contamination of tea leaves in Japan after the Tohoku Earthquake. Tea farmers from Minami Ashigara, one of the first regions discovered to have radiation contamination above government standards, will also be present to discuss their experience. The ITFA will also be serving tea from tea farms of various regions in Kyoto, Shizuoka, and Fukuoka as well as Taiwan via their Japan distributor.

Event Photos

We are very grateful to have had 15 people attend on location and 10 people via web streaming including several journalists. Thank you very much for listening to our explanations of the current situation regarding tea and efforts to reduce contamination levels. Much thanks also to the restaurant, Yasai Kichi, for providing the venue free of charge.

Yasuharu Matsumoto

Minako Uehara

Photos in this gallery were taken when visiting tea farmer Minako Uehara and Japan Agriculture officials in Minami Ashigara, where the very first tea shipments were ordered stopped due to radiation contamination. At the even Ms. Uehara spoke about her experience when the tea was first discovered to be radioactive.

Tetsuya Ishiwata

Director of the Kanagawa Prefectural JA Tea Center, Tetsuya Ishiwata, spoke about the efforts that government and research facilities have made to understand how the tea leaves were contaminated. The result of the research: tea leaves absorbed radioactive particles through the photosynthesis process in the leaves, not through roots in the soil. This means that the plants can be cleaned of radioactivity via cutting and disposal of the leaves.20110910 PDFs

Kyoto prefecture has started feasibility study to register Uji tea culture to World Heritage. Kyoto will inspect the cultural value of Uji tea’s history and manufacturing process, tea culture and landscape of tea field. Accordingly Wazuka town will enact an ordinance to maintain landscape this year.

Wazuka’s landscape in a stamp

On the top of a tea field hill near Obubu office is an old grave. This small and humble grave was made for a son of a famous Emperor Shoumu (A.D.701-756)

In front of the grave stands a notice board. It was put up by the Imperial Household Agency .

It says.

・Please do not enter here without permission!
・Please do not hunt any birds and animals!
・Please do not take away any plants!

Obubu farmer/president Akky took a few photos while he was out in the tea fields today cutting the weeds growing between the hedges… You can see the new leaves coming out…this is what we call fall shincha — harvesting in October, they will become Sencha of the Autumn Moon! (BTW, no one else calls these shincha…as farmers though, they are still new leaves to us!

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About the ITFA

The International Tea Farms Alliance is a non-profit organization started by Kyoto Obubu Tea Plantations with support from the "Japan Brand" project of the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry in Japan.

ITFA Mission

The mission of the ITFA is to become a bridge between tea farmers and tea lovers around the world, as well as provide tea farmers from various production regions to connect with each other.